fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Submit Your Event
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Send Letter to the Editor
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Something new about the Equinox

by Bob Berman
April 1, 2016
in Columns, Nature
0

sun @The Equinox happens Sunday at 4:44 in the afternoon. It’s a familiar story: Autumn begins. Day and night are sort of equal. Night expands at its fastest rate. Nearly everyone knows those basics.

Then there’s the next tier of subtler knowledge. It includes these facts: The day of the Equinox, the Sun moves in a perfectly straight line across the sky. It rises precisely in the east and sets due west. And it’s the rare day when everyone in the world has more minutes of sunshine than solar absence: kind of a smiley-face occasion. (Perfect day/night equality happens a few days later, the middle of next week.)

You also hear wilder stuff, like those who regard it as a day of equilibrium, and imagine that eggs can balance on end. (Try it. It’s ridiculous). But there really is a kind of balance or symmetry that day, and it’s easy to picture why.

Imagine Earth on Sunday, as seen from space. On that day, the line separating day from night, the Terminator, runs exactly from pole to pole. Each pole barely sits in full sunlight. That’s the symmetry. This means that no matter where you live on our spinning globe, you meet the Terminator perpendicularly. This is what ensures that the Sun rises and sets due east and west.

But let’s get even more geeky. To do so, you have to teleport yourself back to fifth-grade Earth Science, when they talked about latitude. The latitude at the pole is 90 degrees, and it’s zero degrees at the Equator. Each latitude line is about 69 miles from the next. The exact 42nd parallel cuts through West Hurley and passes between Kingston and Saugerties. You can tell because your car hits a big bump on Route 28 as you cross the line.

Actually, I made that up. Nonetheless, if like me, you’re somehow obsessed with recognizing the 42-degree spot, it’s just past Route 375 heading west on Route 28, marked by a self-storage place on the right. Imagine that: You can stash your stuff at the precise 42nd Parallel.

How does this relate to the Equinox? Well, on Sunday, the midday height of the Sun, its distance from the exact overhead point, exactly equals your latitude – meaning, at the Equator, latitude zero, the Sun hovers zero degrees from the zenith: straight up. At either pole, latitude 90 degrees, the Sun hovers 90 degrees from overhead, which means that it sits on the horizon there. In our neck of the woods, the meridian Sun stands about halfway up the sky this weekend.

And now, I suspect, you’ve had more than enough, all things being equal.

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Bob Berman

Bob Berman, Ulster Publishing’s Night Sky columnist since 1974, is the world’s most widely read astronomer. Since the mid-1990s, his celebrated "Strange Universe" feature has appeared monthly in Astronomy magazine, the largest circulation periodical on the subject. Berman is also the long-time astronomy editor of the Old Farmer’s Almanac. He was Discover magazine’s monthly columnist from 1989-2006. He has authored more than a thousand published mass-market articles and been a guest on such TV shows as Today and Late Night with David Letterman. Berman is director of two Ulster County observatories and the Storm King Observatory at Cornwall. He was adjunct professor of astronomy and physics at Marymount college from 1995-2000.

Related Posts

Gala for Wild Earth celebrates nature and education
Entertainment

Gala for Wild Earth celebrates nature and education

June 20, 2025
How we see each other and ourselves
Columns

How we see each other and ourselves

June 16, 2025
Suddenly summer
Columns

Suddenly summer

June 11, 2025
Outer space clickbait
Columns

Outer space clickbait

June 11, 2025
Cloud-watching: a summer guide
Nature

Cloud-watching: a summer guide

June 7, 2025
What the newspapers said 100 years ago
Columns

What the newspapers said 100 years ago

June 2, 2025
Next Post

Rowing Club revival planned

Weather

Kingston, NY
77°
Cloudy
5:19 am8:36 pm EDT
Feels like: 77°F
Wind: 0mph SSE
Humidity: 88%
Pressure: 30.03"Hg
UV index: 0
TueWedThu
100°F / 72°F
93°F / 70°F
81°F / 63°F
Kingston, NY weather forecast for tomorrow ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Art
    • Books
    • Kids
    • Lifestyle & Wellness
    • Food & Drink
    • Music
    • Nature
    • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review

© 2022 Ulster Publishing